Ainslee's Magazine/Foreign Exchange/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II.
They were having tea—for the “five o'clock” has been thoroughly adopted as a French custom just now—on the terrace, over which awnings had been drawn to temper the too strong rays of the slowly descending sun,
The young hostess had not yet returned from her round of visits, but all the rest of the family, with the guests of their small house party, were gathered together.
Behind the tea table sat the Duchesse De St. Maur, a handsome old woman, with snowy puffs of hair on each side of her head—stately almost to the freezing point. Just now her dignity was intensified by the fact that, while she had tolerated, she had never approved of her son's American relatives by marriage, and the further fact that, in deference to the foreigners, the conversation was carried on in English, a language of which she neither spoke nor understood one word.
Beside the duchess was a very handsome, distinguished-looking woman of about thirty, to whom Victor De Savergne paid devoted attention, an attention to which she herself seemed by no means averse. And Victor's mother saw and understood it all, but only smiled indulgently.
Leaning over the parapet and looking down into the valley, and every once in a while sighing impatiently, as if expecting something or somebody that did not arrive, was a dapper, rather delicate-looking young man, with blond hair carefully brushed, and a very slight fair mustache, turned up in military fashion. This was the Vicomte Albert De Raimbault, the “tame cat,” as the French say when they want to describe some one who has free access on any and all occasions to any particular family.
A little apart from the others, Mr. Baxter sipped disconsolately from the cup in his hands. He did not like tea, and there were one or two things which were troubling him not a little. In the first place he had seen his grandson, and had found him a gentle, rather serious little fellow, but one whom he could not understand and who could not understand him. Little Edouard spoke only French! Nancy's child could not speak English! The idea was very disturbing. Then, Nancy had not come and her husband did not seem to miss her in the least. That was disturbing, too. Of course, he wasn't finding fault. Business is the man's side of the house; the other side is the woman's, especially if the child is a daughter. Mrs. Baxter had always—that is, he had always let her handle that.
“Well,” he concluded to himself with a sigh, which he fancied was one of relief, “Mrs. Baxter always said it was the best for Nancy, and I guess she knows.”
But if her liege lord was not enjoying himself, Mrs. Baxter certainly was. Snugly ensconced in a most comfortable chair with a real live prince to attend to her wants, what more could mortal woman desire? And the prince certainly could not have been more charming. The head of the De Savergne family possessed both a courtesy and a tact which were beyond reproach, What if a Lavater would have pronounced the prince, in spite of all his noble blood, a gentleman by effort rather than by instinct? What if that same Lavater should quote the old saying about scratching the Tartar and finding the Russian underneath? Externals are, after all, what count chiefly in this world, especially in the social sphere.
“Now, please do tell me something about the two guests you have with you,” Mrs. Baxter was saying beamingly.
“One,” said the prince in graceful compliance, “is—what you call?—your daughter's bosom friend, Renée De Montfort, a charming woman who loves your daughter.”
A slight shade of disappointment appeared in Mrs. Baxter's eyes. “She is simply Madame De Montfort?” she asked.
“She is the Marquise De Montfort.”
The shade disappeared as Mrs. Baxter exclaimed with rather undue rapture: “Oh, I am sure she is charming!”
“The other,” proceeded the prince, “is my nephew's most intimate friend—Albert De Raimbault.”
“Hasn't he any title?”
“Oh, yes, vicomte.”
“Ah, Vee-comte Albert De Raimbault,” rolling it on her tongue. “I am sure he is charming!”
How entrancing this was! To be on intimate terms with princes, duchesses, marquises, and viscounts, not to speak of the fact that one's own daughter was a countess!
The prince leaned forward impressively.
“Sst!” he began mysteriously, but yet smilingly. Again, Lavater would not have called that exactly a pleasant smile. “I'll tell you a secret. That poor Albert worships the ground your daughter steps on. It is droll.”
“How perfectly delightful!” laughed Mrs. Baxter in gleeful maternal pride. Then she added more gravely: “Really, there doesn't seem to be any flaw in Nancy's existence, does there?”
The prince was silent for a moment.
“Nothing—nothing that is serious,” he said, at last, still smiling his inscrutable smile. “Or perhaps one little” He shrugged his shoulders slightly, but expressively. “But it is merely—the young married woman must always find some tiny annoyance. As she grows older, she sees it is nothing, nothing at all; and as time passes she learns it is to be taken with a smile. Some trifles are a little more difficult for a young girl who has been brought up in the American fashion to understand, but she will learn, and she will acquit herself very well. Perhaps just now she imagines a little—she imagines.
Mrs. Baxter was very far from understanding the whole import of the prince's speech. Perhaps he was far from intending that she should; he looked upon it simply as the sowing of a tiny seed which should bear fruit hereafter. At all events, Mrs. Baxter seized upon the last few words to reply sententiously:
“I always told Mr. Baxter that Nancy had too much imagination.”
“Oh, she will learn,” returned the prince reassuringly.
“You can count on me, prince,” asserted Mrs. Baxter, with proud confidence, although she had not the slightest idea to what she was binding herself. “She'll be entirely sensible after I've had a few talks with her.”
“I'm sure your influence will be for good,” returned the prince gallantly. “This morning I was urging her to wear some of her pretty things; the De Savergne jewels. She refused me, I am sorry to say. If there has been any whispering of—well, it will have a good effect. You will join me to make a point of it?”
Mrs. Baxter bowed gravely in acquiescence. Somehow she was now vaguely alarmed.
“Ah,” said the prince, rising, “here comes Madame De Montfort to speak to you.” And with a low bow he moved away to join Mr. Baxter.
The marquise sank into the chair the prince had just vacated, and laid one of her slender, white hands, glittering with rings, caressingly on Mrs. Baxter's arm.
“I feel that I must know you better, dear Mrs. Baxter,” she said purringly. She spoke English almost perfectly, with only the slightest accent. “I am so very, very fond of dear Nancy.”
“Ah, my dear marquise,” murmured Mrs. Baxter, overwhelmed; then effusively: “It is all so charming here. It is like a dream to me. When my Nancy was a little girl I made up my mind she should be surrounded by the best. The great trouble with even the most exclusive society in a republic like the States is that there are such multitudes of people who can't be made to understand that one is their superior. The very commonest sort of people sometimes ignore our position.”
“Is it possible?” murmured Madame De Montfort, bravely and successfully conquering an inclination to smile.
“Yes, indeed, they do, they do,” said Mrs. Baxter, as if the thing were incredible but true. “I assure you they do, indeed! But when I met the dear prince and he introduced Victor, I said to myself: 'That is the son-in-law for me. As a countess of the old nobility, my daughter's position will be assured not only in New York and Newport, but at every court in Europe.” And when I see the charm and distinction of the people who now surround Nancy”
“Oh, madame!” smilingly protested the marquise.
But Mrs. Baxter proceeded earnestly:
“I say that it is no wonder our American girls have ambition for themselves, or that their mothers have the fine feeling for them that they do—no wonder that they marry abroad into something higher and better than they can get at home! I congratulate myself a thousand times that I had the foresight to provide this happiness for my daughter!”
At this juncture, the duchesse, apparently tired of the English-speaking company, disappeared into the château, dutifully attended by her son.
Mr. Baxter's voice rose from the little group composed of himself, the prince, and Albert De Raimbault, who had just joined the other two.
“Well, they can't say they don't have good-looking women in this country,” he declared, casting a fleeting glance at Renée De Montfort. “Yes, sir. Some regular eye-openers! On our last night in Paris there was a woman in a box at the theatre, just the prettiest thing I ever did see anywhere. My Lord! Clothes, and jewels, and style! I never saw it beat. Everybody in the house was looking at her.”
“That might have been Madame De Saint Croix,” suggested the prince.
“No, it wasn't,” denied Mr. Baxter, with the conviction of knowledge. “A fellow told me her name, said it was Di—Dee—no—Diane Delaige.”
The prince could not repress a start, and he glanced hastily about to see if Victor were present.
Albert De Raimbault appeared highly amused.
“Diane Delage,” he corrected.
“Delage! That's it!” cried Mr. Baxter triumphantly. “Diane Delage!”
Raimbault's amusement seemed to increase. He stroked his mustache to conceal his inward laughter, while at the same time he shot a mischievous glance at the marquise. That lady's return look, however, was anything but amused; it was full of annoyance, even of suppressed anger.
The prince lifted his hand to check Baxter from proceeding any further.
“Ssh! My dear Baxter—pardon—that is a name we think it as well not to mention here.”
Taken aback, Baxter frowned in a puzzled way.
“I hope I haven't made any break,” he faltered,
“It is nothing, nothing,” said the prince soothingly.
The situation, rather an awkward one, was relieved by the appearance of a liveried footman, who announced in French: “Madame the Countess has returned,”
And then a rare vision of loveliness appeared on the threshold of the château. The tailor-made visiting costume set off the young countess' slender, girlish figure to perfection. Her face was a trifle pale, perhaps, but with the exquisite creamy pallor of old ivory that contrasted charmingly with the rich color of the beautifully formed lips. Her hair was of the darkest brown, almost black, save when the sunshine glinting upon it gave it a coppery tint. Perhaps her greatest beauty, however, was her eyes, which were of a deep purple color, shaded by long, curling lashes. They were inscrutable eyes, too, ever changing with the dominant emotion.
As she caught sight of the little group, she uttered a cry of joy, and darted impulsively forward.
“Nancy!” cried Baxter, his voice trembling with emotion, as he held out his arms to his daughter. “Here's your old daddy come to see you.”
Regardless of all eyes, critical or otherwise, the young countess darted forward and threw herself into her father's embrace.
“You're glad to see the old man?” he murmured in choking tones.
“So glad! So glad!” And she clung to him, almost sobbing.
A touch on her shoulder, and she drew herself from her father's arms to embrace her mother, if not quite as effusively, nevertheless with the tenderest affection.
“My dearest child!”
“Oh, I am glad to see you!”
“And now let me look at you,” said her father, covertly wiping his eyes. But in another moment his emotion was changed to something closely approaching consternation.
“Why, what's the matter?” he gasped. “You been sick?”
Nancy tried to smile.
“No, never.”
Baxter turned to the prince, who had been silently contemplating the scene through half-closed eyes.
“Why, prince, look at her! I leave it to you. She looks all run down.”
“Our dear child is in the best of health, I think,” replied the prince, at the same time bending upon the young woman a look of peculiar scrutiny.
She returned his gaze with one, half of fear, half of defiance. Then: “Of course, I am,” she said, with a sudden assumption of gayety.
Her father shook his head. Before he could say anything further, however, Renée De Montfort intervened.
“We'll leave you now with your dear parents,” she said. “Come, prince. Come, viscount.”
Nancy shot her a glance of gratitude and understanding.
When the three were left alone together, Mr. Baxter returned to the charge.
“Really, Nancy, I am worried about you. I”
But Nancy flung toward him a beseeching gesture. A strange look came into her beautiful eyes, the look of one who knows that there is an ordeal to be gone through with and who is seeking for strength to withstand it.
“Please not now, papa,” she pleaded. “Just give me a minute to pull myself together.”
As she spoke she moved toward the parapet and stood, with her back toward them, gazing at the purple Pyrenees with vacant eyes.
“Why, what's all this?” exclaimed Mrs, Baxter in a tone of aggrieved sur-prise.
“I was afraid of it,” retorted Baxter moodily, and then he added with significant emphasis: “She ain't happy!”
Mrs. Baxter turned upon her husband a look surcharged with indignation.
“Nonsense!” she ejaculated severely. “I tell you she's the happiest woman in the world. How could she be otherwise?”
Before Baxter could reply, Nancy turned and came slowly toward them. Her face was, if anything, paler than ever, and she seemed on the verge of tears. But when she spoke it was in a steady voice, with just the faintest tinge of sarcasm.
“Yes, mamma, how could it be otherwise?”
“See what she's got,” proceeded Mrs. Baxter, still addressing her husband, “Her position! Everything.”
“Everything in the world,” murmured Nancy lifelessly.
“All this,” persisted Mrs. Baxter, with an expansive gesture which took in the château and the surrounding landscape.
There was a strange light in Nancy's eyes, half satirical, half painful, as she subconsciously imitated her mother's gesture,
“All this,” she repeated. “It would be strange, wouldn't it, if, with all this, I should be the unhappiest woman in the world?”
Mrs, Baxter stared at her in speechless anger and amazement; but Baxter, with a sigh, said in a sort of sad triumph;
“I told you so!”
“It seems like Providence,” continued the young countess, “your coming one day ahead. It's this very day that things have come to a crisis.”
“What things?” gasped Mrs. Baxter, partially recovering herself.
“My whole life with these people.”
“Do you mean to complain of it?” asked Mrs. Baxter, as if the very idea were beyond comprehension.
Nancy's eyes shot fire as she flung up her head, and answered in a tone vibrant with long pent-up feeling:
“With all my strength and soul I protest against it!”
“What in the world,” began Mrs. Baxter, “can you find”
“When you married me to Victor,” Nancy interrupted, controlling her voice with an effort and speaking more calmly, though still with an undercurrent of suppressed passion, “I was too young to know that men of his class over here often have a reputation for what they call 'gallantry.' That was one of the things I learned after I was married. Another was that my husband was true to his type. And still another was that the incident of his marriage to me was not to interfere with his 'gallantry.' This much I learned for myself, but” She faltered slightly, and then, recovering herself, went on: “But they taught me the rest. What you call the old nobility, mamma, such families as the De Savergnes, live by rules they've had for generations; iron-bound rules they all obey, and the chiefest rule is that no matter what horrors go on in the depths they must never appear on the surface. In all the decalogue they recognize but one crime—you may commit all the others if you avoid that one—that is, to make a scandal. Not what we mean by a scandal. It's not a scandal to them for a husband to be a man of 'gallantry,' but it is a scandal for his wife to refuse to bear the common lot of wives—of their wives. So they taught me that, even in the shock of discovering my husband's gallantry, I must make no outcry that could he heard. They taught me that rule pretty thoroughly, you see, and I've borne the common lot pretty thoroughly, too. Victor's most permanent fancy has lasted now more than a year.”
Mrs, Baxter made a gesture of protest, as if not wishing to listen; but Nancy, ignoring this, went on gravely:
“Oh, it's public property. The object of it is a woman known everywhere on the Continent for her beauty, her jewels, and her infamous life. They point her out to you in the theatre. I myself have had the honor of having her stare at me as I left my box.”
Baxter, who had been listening with all his ears, and with his honest heart quivering with indignation, broke in incredulously:
“It isn't—that—Diane Delage?”
Nancy nodded.
“That name and my husband's have been sung together in every cabaret in Paris. The worst king in Europe wasted a fortune on her, and Victor, it seems, is his successor.”
Moved by a variety of emotions, Mrs. Baxter said agitatedly:
“My child, you are putting things very brutally.”
“There's no other way to put them,” declared Nancy, with determination, and then she reverted to her theme. “They had some difficulty in teaching me to bear it. You know the proper behavior among them is for a woman to act as if she were unconscious of such things. You are to ignore them. If you can't, you see, you're ludicrous, bourgeoise, vulgar. I wasn't an apt pupil at first; in fact, I was so backward in my lesson that the head of the house, the Prince De Savergne, himself had to take me in charge. I've been in training under him for a long while; the whip he has used, so far, has been ridicule—a gracious, airy, contemptuous ridicule! I don't know what they are,” with a helpless gesture, “but he has other weapons in reserve if that, isn't effective.”
“The prince!” burst out Mrs. Baxter, in violent protest at criticism of that high and mighty personage. “Why, he's the sweetest man in the world!”
Nancy's eyes contracted, and she shivered as if in bodily fear.
“I'm afraid of him,” she exclaimed, “I could never face him alone. That's why I'm so glad you came just now; because you're here to stand by me if I have to do what it seems I must do to-day.”
“What do you think you must do to-day?” demanded Mrs. Baxter in angry apprehension.
Nancy cast an appealing look at her mother. Already she was beginning to realize that she could expect little aid or support from that side of the family, and her heart sank at the thought. But she had reached the end of her tether of forbearance, and her determination was unshaken.
“This morning I drove over to Fontenay to shop,” she began in explanation. “I was late getting away, so I lunched at the hotel. While I was there I saw Diane Delage arrive from Paris. We've been in the country two months, and I thought perhaps the affair was broken off; but this means that Victor has brought her to my very door.”
Mr. Baxter made an infuriated exclamation, but his wife checked him with a look of severe authority.
“I never heard anything so absurd!” she cried, turning again to Nancy. “Your poor, dear husband may know nothing whatever of her being here.”
Nancy's lips curled.
“Do you think that likely?” she asked quietly.
“I think it almost certain the poor, dear man has nothing to do with her coming. There's no proof that”
“There's one way to know,” interrupted the countess, with determination. “She's there at Fontenay. If he goes to Fontenay to-day”
“Even that might be a coincidence,” persisted Mrs. Baxter.
“If it happens, I'll go to-night,” announced Nancy grimly.
“What on earth are you talking about?” almost shrieked Mrs. Baxter. “Where are you going?”
“If he goes to Fontenay, I've finished.” She spoke with an air of finality from which there was no appeal. “I'm through with it all.”
“Nancy Baxter,” cried her mother, “here you go magnifying a peccadillo of your husband's till you want to leave him! You talk like one of those simple American wives.”
Nancy turned on her sharply. “That's what I ought to have been.”
Tears of mingled vexation and alarm started into Mrs. Baxter's eyes.
“Oh! Oh!” she whimpered. “After all my sacrifices to put you where you are, this is the way you show your gratitude! You have everything that anybody could want, and you talk of throwing it away for a miserable whim of jealousy!”
Nancy laughed mirthlessly.
“Jealousy!” she repeated. “Don't you understand the difference? It's simply self-respect. I wish I could be jealous of Victor, but—I can't ever be again.”
Mrs. Baxter raised her hands in horror.
“To me that's immoral!” she declared, with emphasis. “Not love the man you married!”
Nancy made a gesture of impatience.
“I didn't marry anybody,” she retorted. “No girl of eighteen ever does. I married an idea—an idea that had been put into my head that all this was the greatest thing in the world. It was your idea, mamma.”
As if overpowered by the accusation, Mrs. Baxter sank down heavily in a chair.
“This is my reward!” she declaimed with theatrical pathos.
Mr. Baxter went to her and patted her on the shoulder.
“Now, mother, she ain't upbraiding you,” he said soothingly.
But Mrs. Baxter paid no attention to him.
“We come here expecting a happy visit among charming people,” she continued in an acme of self-commiseration, “and we find you in this condition. If you can't control yourself better, you'll make your father and me very uncomfortable.”
Nancy looked at her for a moment, and then she turned to her father in a manner that was both determined and appealing.
“Papa, you're going to stand by me, aren't you?”
Greatly troubled, Mr. Baxter answered slowly:
“Nancy, I can't deny that it's pretty hard to have you put up with such things”
“What's that?” interrupted Mrs. Baxter fiercely, rising to her feet as quickly as her bulk would permit.
Mr. Baxter was not a cowardly man. He had plenty of self-assertiveness, as his business associates would have testified; but he had been too long under the domination of his wife, so far as family matters were concerned, to take a contrary stand to her now. Still he could not help a qualm of shame as he said hesitatingly:
“But, Nancy, I have always left this kind of thing to your mother, you know—and everything over here sort of confuses me. I wish I could do something for you, but you see how it ist—I don't just know how I can interfere.”
Nancy said nothing. She realized that it would be futile to persist. She must stand alone in whatever course she should decide to pursue. With a long sigh, that went at least to her father's heart, she turned slowly and passed into the château.